Millennials Devastated As American Dream Becomes Nightmare For Most

"It seems to me that if you went to college and took on student debt, there used to be greater assurance that you could pay it off with a good job," sums up one 'millennial', adding - sadly - "but now, for people living in this economy and in our age group, it's a rough deal." As WSJ reports, only about a third of adults in their early 20s works full-time - the lowest rate in 40 years - as the combination of structural changes and this recession "is devastating for millennial." Despite think-tanks demanding more of employers in terms of workplace rules and minimum wages, the reality is workers are expected to do more for less and be grateful - "this is a huge problem when think of where demand is going."

The young are earnings less and less relative to the average earnings in the US...

as the younger generation's participation in the labor force fell more than 3 times as fast in the "lost decade" as in the previous two decades...

The on-ramp to adulthood is delayed and harder to reach for young people today, a reality that is changing the country's society and economy, according to a new report.

More demanding job requirements, coupled with the pressures of the recession, have delayed the transition to adulthood for young people in the past decade and earned them the title of "the new lost generation," according to the report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, published Monday.

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"It seems to me that if you went to college and took on student debt, there used to be greater assurance that you could pay it off with a good job," said the Colorado native, who majored in English before dropping out. "But now, for people living in this economy and in our age group, it's a rough deal."

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Through analyzing about three decades of census data—from 1980 to 2012—the study found that on average, young workers are now 30 years old when they first earn a median-wage income of about $42,000, a marker of financial independence, up from 26 years old in 1980.

About a third of adults in their early 20s work full time, a proportion that rises to about half of adults in their late 20s. The labor-force participation rate for young people last year declined to its lowest point in about 40 years, according to the report.

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In recent decades, the U.S. has seen a gradual outward shift in people's professional lives: Americans today tend to start work later and continue working longer than in past generations. A decade ago, a boy in his late teens was twice as likely as a man his grandfather's age to hold a job; today, the teen is actually less likely to be working.

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"The combination of structural change plus this particular recession has been devastating for millennials," ... "It has really knocked them back, and some of these losses are permanent."

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"The millennial generation was the generation to confront this structural change first," said Mr. Carnevale. "It has sorted them out in ways that have made them more unequal than any generation before. For those who didn't get the traction [for a job], it's not clear that they will get the traction."